Timing is half the battle of comedy and you nailed it here.

This is why we can’t have nice things

Right. And nor does Jason have enough info on OP.

So it comes across, as I said, as a “gatekeeper-ass” thing to say in the context of OPs journey to self hosting.

Where they are is in no way “sad”. Except if you’re being an adversarial gatekeeper dick about purity.

I think your life is sad.

Let me know how you took that.

Welcoming? Adversarial?

I’m not out here to Stan for cloudflare. It’s just a totally valid tool for the job, there are valid reasons to use it, and as we agree, it’s not productive to tell a newcomer that their choice of meeting their needs is “sad”

In fact, it’s an unwelcoming thing to say. If we want folks to stop using cloud services, we can’t shame the valid paths to get there.

this is sad

They literally led by throwing shame unto OP.

That’s how they opened their response.

It is not sad. Suggesting it is sad is a “gatekeeper-ass thing” to say.

I think you missed my point. You are mistaking your preferred architecture with moral superiority.

Cloudflare is not “gatekeeping” someone from self-hosting. It is an optional tool. A person choosing to use it because they are new, budget-conscious, or not ready to expose services directly is not sad, fake self-hosting, or somehow philosophically impure.

You can absolutely argue that Cloudflare has tradeoffs. That is fair. It adds dependency, abstraction, and vendor-specific knowledge. It is not magic security dust. No disagreement there.

But telling a beginner “this is sad” because they are using a mainstream protective layer while learning is exactly the kind of gatekeeping that makes self-hosting communities hostile to newcomers.

Also, “just use a VPN” is not a universal answer. VPNs are great for private admin access. They are not always the right solution when someone wants family members to access media or services without managing VPN clients, device support, troubleshooting, and onboarding. Different threat models, different usability needs.

The helpful response would have been: “Cloudflare can be useful, but understand what it does and does not protect you from. Don’t expose admin panels. Use MFA, strong auth, least privilege, good backups, updates, reverse proxy rules, and keep anything sensitive behind a VPN.”

That is useful advice.

“This is sad” is just self-hosting purity signaling.

I have tagged you as “selfhosting gatekeeper” for future reference.

There’s plenty wrong with shaming people en route to that path for not being 100% there.

That is all I said.

That’s a gatekeeper-ass take. It isnt sad in any way shape or form. What an elitist proclamation.

If you build your own infra internally and want a billion dollar industry to be your point of entry because you’re not confident in hardening a vps or don’t wanna pay for that on top of everything else (yet), so the fuck what?

REEEE YOU MUST OWN ALL OF YOUR INFRA

🙄

Get bent. If cloudflare goes down again (for another whole handful of minutes, the horror!!) they are clearly ramping to make the jump to a VPS when the finances and/or cybersecurity chops feel ready and the needs arise. “Sad”? Please. Get off your high horse. You make the rest of self hosters look bad.

Every AI logo is a butthole.

Network engineering is hilarious as well.

“now up to the plate we’ve got a rookie making his debut, Mr. Barry Bonds”

Yeah, no. This doesn’t work.

I have bunted a baseball over a little league fence. Me and some friends tried all day long.

My technique was to push the bunt while turning into the pitch.

Getting it to the outfield is trivial. Home run is very hard. The fence was less than 200 ft.

Gimme 9 other guys and OP can tell ya.

It tells me my job is safe, which is nice.

To assume the creator of rsync is vibe coding because they used AI is ridiculous.

only a child would think this way

That does not change the fact that the speaker used the correct words.

For the love of God, stay in school.

… Their statement is grammatically accurate.

Your suggestion here is asinine.

Actual Smoky The Bear Simpsons gag in real life. Unbelievable.

I mean if it describes what you do accurately then they won’t be able to say much other than yes.